The Military Megapack

by Harry Harrison

  “So that’s how you got in,” whispered Mickey.

  “Come,” whispered Feodor, “and keep well down to the ground.” The noise of boots on gravel reached them. “Down!” commanded the boy and automatically, as though he were accustomed to complying with the other’s orders, Mickey dropped to his knees and hid in some underbrush.

  The black shadow of the sentry retracing his path outside the enclosure passed not more than five feet away. They waited with bated breath until the man was out of earshot.

  “Come!” whispered Feodor, and grabbing Mickey by the arm led him on the double to a clump of maple trees about a hundred yards away and to a small thicket of willows that lined the Kuban River about a half-mile from the camp.

  They reached one large tree set back from the river. Its foliage was denser than the others. Like a monkey, agile, strong, Feodor disappeared into the branches above and soon descended with a large bundle.

  “Help me with this,” he commanded.

  Mickey smiled at the boy’s tone, but took his orders good-naturedly. He helped him open up what proved to be a rubber boat. In the dark the youngster found the valve. A second later, there was a sharp hissing noise as the boat took shape. This boy had evidently prepared for all emergencies.

  “So this is how you got down here from the hills,” said Mickey.

  “I came down with the current from the Elbrus,” explained Feodor. “I brought a gas bottle with me and hid it with the boat after I had deflated it.” He finished the job of inflation. He looked toward the river. “It will be harder going back,” he said. “We will have to row against the current.”

  “Where are your oars?” asked Mickey.

  “I hid them in that farthermost tree,” he indicated, pointing to a willow on the edge of the river whose branches and leaves were kept wet as they dripped into the Kuban.

  * * * *

  They carried the rubber boat and set it down under the deep shadow of this willow. Feodor climbed into the tree and returned with two small paddles and another object.

  “What else have you got there?” asked Mickey curiously.

  “A submachine gun,” explained Feodor.

  “You thought to bring everything, didn’t you?”

  “I have to get you back to the men,” explained Feodor.

  “And to Koslovitch,” added Mickey.

  “And to Koslovitch,” agreed Feodor.

  It was more difficult to paddle up the fast-running current of the restless Kuban that even Feodor had anticipated. Both men paddled desperately against the rapidly-moving waters that roared down from the great mountain. They kept inshore for the resistance was lessened there by its close proximity to the banks. The paddling was less difficult.

  Dawn broke over them as they continued to paddle up the stream that was less than a half-mile wide. It was broad daylight when they rounded the bend in the river and came upon the railroad bridge that crossed it while they were still several miles from Batalpashinsk.

  Mickey remembered that his hospital unit had escaped to there. At least, he thought they were still there but Feodor told him:

  “They were driven out again and have gone on to Pyatigorsk where our Kuban Cossacks are holding the Germans back,” he told Mickey. “Just how long they can hold out there, I don’t know. But they are determined not to let the Nazi rats infest more of the valley than they can help.”

  As the boat reached the trestle that held the railroad tracks above the Kuban, Feodor ordered: “Stop paddling,” and grabbed for one of the piles on the south bank of the river.

  “This is as far as we dare go now on the river in broad daylight,” he said. “We’ll hide the boat under the bridge and go to one of the collective farms nearby where many of the farmers are getting ready to evacuate their farms for places out of the battle areas. We may be able to get a lift from there to the foothills around Elbrus.”

  He drew the boat up the bank under the trestle and deflated it. Feodor rolled it up and hid it under a depression that was hardly observable even when one stood near it.

  “You seem to know this country pretty well, Feodor,” remarked Mickey.

  Feodor was not a braggart. He spoke as one having authority; but there was no arrogance in his replies. He was a strange youth, Mickey observed. All the boy said was:

  “Pretty well.”

  They walked up to a woman collectivist farmer who was loading a wagon with her furniture, bedding, and what food she had left. With her was her son of ten. Her head was wrapped in her shawl of wool; the youngster’s close cropped head was covered with a homemade cap.

  Feodor strode officiously over to the woman. He was not much more than a child himself in years. Mickey saw him whisper something in the woman’s ear. She clapped her hand to her mouth as if to suppress a scream of delight and prevent her shouting the thing he had whispered to her. She looked toward the young American doctor in a now water-stained, mud-spattered American uniform and grinned happily. He heard her say in her native Russian:

  “Of course, I’ll help. With all my heart—with all my life if necessary.”

  * * * *

  That was the Soviet man or woman’s cry. It rose in every corner, light or dark, in the nation. It was the cry that would one day send the Nazi hordes reeling back to the rat holes in Germany from whence they had come.

  “She will take us right to our destination,” Feodor told him. “Isn’t that nice?”

  They helped the woman load her wagon, leaving a space in the center of the cart for themselves to step into. She put the finishing touches to the job by throwing her bedding in over them as they crouched, completely hidden even from possible searchers.

  The woman gave them a whole loaf of black bread and some milk, and as the wagon dragged along the stretch of road winding through the foothills of the Caucasus, the mountain undulated for miles ahead of them, their tips snow-crested and white; their bases green-carpeted, and brown.

  Across the Kuban Steppes they rode; the two chestnut-colored horses drawing the cart behind them; and behind the cart two cows and several sheep and pigs followed in their wake.

  “Her husband is a member of Koslovitch’s guerrillas,” explained Feodor. “He is lying wounded in the cave and she was going to him to help nurse him. When I told her who you were, Comrade, it made her very happy.”

  “I’m glad of that,” said Mickey.

  Through a very tiny crack in the piled up goods over his head and on all sides of him, Mickey could see the winding mountain pass over which the cart was plodding several hours later stretch far to the west. Beyond that, he caught a glimpse of the glacial peak of Mount Elbrus.

  “You came a long way to get a doctor,” remarked Mickey to his young companion.

  “I tried two other places first,” explained Feodor. “One was Pyatigorsk, the other Batalpashinsk. I was told they could spare none, but that you and four other doctors were taken prisoner and would probably be available if I could get you out.” He smiled a boyish smile; the first Mickey had seen on the youngster’s serious face. “Well,” he added, “here you are.”

  Mickey laughed.

  But the laugh was cut short. Automobile engines suddenly snorted in upon them. The sound of them drove down from the hills. With a roar they were upon the little wagon and seemed to be coming upon them from all sides. A man shouted in Russian at the woman.

  “Stop!” he cried. “Stop your wagon!”

  The cart was pulled up short. The furniture and bedding and other of the woman’s belongings shifted but not sufficiently to expose the hidden men. Feodor reached for the machine gun at his feet. His grip fastened upon the stock. Mickey could see a peculiar light creep into the boy’s eyes; his bronzed face darkened; his jaw tightened with grim determination. The Russian had a tinge of German as it drifted through to them.

  “Where are you going?” the voice said.

  “I am going to join my husband who is wounded,” replied the woman truthfully.

  “What ha
ve you got there on your cart?” demanded the voice.

  “Just my furniture, my bedding, a few pots and pans,” she said calmly. “Nothing else.”

  * * * *

  Mickey admired the woman’s courage. She knew that if he and Feodor were uncovered by the Nazis, not only would they be shot on the spot, but the woman and her son would die with them. Yet her voice was steady, calm, emotionless.

  “Search the wagon,” cried the voice.

  Mickey went hot and cold all over. They were sunk now, he thought. He and Feodor sank to the floor of the cart as pieces of furniture were yanked off the wagon and thrown to the ground.

  Feodor raised the muzzle of his machine gun, readying it into position for attack. He might die, but he would not die alone.

  “We are looking for guerrillas,” went on the voice. “Have you seen any on your way up here?”

  “Oh, no,” replied the woman.

  “If you had you would tell us, wouldn’t you, my good woman?” went on the man.

  “Of course,” she replied, “if you insisted on it.”

  “You’re a filthy Russian liar,” cried the man.

  The unloading continued. Mickey and Feodor were perspiring in their anxiety. They did not want to be caught. They did not fear for themselves, but for the brave woman and the child with her. The Germans ripped off a bundle of bedding that roofed in the hidden men. They were getting closer to the men. For some unknown reason they stopped with the first bundle of bedding. Had they lifted the second, they would have uncovered the two men.

  The Heinie above stopped searching. The furniture and bedding were scattered about the road surrounding the wagon. Some of the lighter pieces were broken.

  “Herr Oberst,” he called down, “there is nothing but this filthy peasant stuff on this cart. The woman spoke the truth.”

  “Very well,” cried the man. “Come down and let’s get on.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the man. He jumped to the ground. “Shall we put the stuff back?”

  “Put the stuff back!” shouted the man. “What do you mean, you swine! Let the filthy peasant put it back herself!” He turned about and gave the command: “Forvarts!”

  The motors in the German truck snarled into life; shifting gears ground raucously. One by one the trucks roared by and the noise of their guttural steely throats dimmed with the distance.

  Mickey wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He was too weak to reach for his kerchief behind him. He had recognized the man’s voice.

  It was Von Starheim.

  III.

  “That was a narrow squeak,” said Mickey rising from his cramped position on the floor of the cart.

  Young Feodor too rose and stretched himself when the Nazis were out of sight. “You’ll get used to them,” he remarked philosophically.

  “We’d better get down and help the woman re-pile her wagon,” suggested Mickey.

  “Not while the Nazis have powerful field glasses to pick us up with,” said the masterful youth. “She will have to do the job herself—to save us from a firing squad. We’re not yet out of danger, you know,” he reminded Mickey, “even if those Nazi roaches are out of sight.”

  Mickey eyed the boy with unconcealed admiration. This youngster thought of everything.

  The woman started putting back her furniture and other belongings. Thirty minutes later, the strange caravan was on its way. Mickey and Feodor were not as cramped this time for they had placed two small wooden chairs in the middle of the pile and they sat on them.

  “How far is the camp from here?” asked Mickey.

  “We should reach the place sometime tonight at the speed we are going,” said Feodor. “In about an hour or two she will turn off the road and take a route into the hills.”

  “She knows where the place is, I suppose,” said Mickey anxiously.

  “As well as I do,” replied Feodor. “She could find it in the dark.”

  “I’d like to get out of this and stretch my long legs,” said the American.

  “When the woman turns into the hills,” assured Feodor, “you will be able to.”

  But it took the slowed-up horses two hours to cross that part of the Steppes which lay south of the Kuban River and stretched like an endless green carpet to the base of the towering ranges. Off the mountain pass and in between two high precipitous hills the little caravan halted. They were well out of possible enemy territory now, and in deep enough for them to be sufficiently safe to start a small fire on which to cook a meal.

  The woman removed the bedding and some of the other pieces of furniture and let Feodor and the American Army doctor whose legs were so cramped he could hardly stand on them drop to the ground.

  As Mickey looked off toward the undulating range of mountains, he drew in a deep breath of the crystal clear air. He pounded himself on the chest Tarzan fashion.

  “It’s good to get out of the hemmed in position we were in,” he said stretching himself to his full height and yawning widely. The altitude, and the thinner, colder air made him feel a little drowsy.

  Even the little youngster, who had been riding outside all the time, yawned as he watched Mickey. Feodor and the woman took some of the broken furniture and started a small fire. The cattle were released and permitted to graze. Mickey took the youngster’s hand and they walked a short distance from the wagon. As the American gazed off at the gentle mist that hung over the mauve, green, gold, and white of the distant hills, he turned to the child beside him and said: “Now I know why the Don and Kuban Cossacks fight the way they do to save these mountains from the Nazi swine.”

  * * * *

  His eyes fairly glowed with the beauty of the scene. For a moment he thought he was home; back in the States where other and equally beautiful mountains rose in great golden-white peaks that looked out upon a blue Pacific.

  They ate the heavy black bread and pot cheese the woman had made herself the day before, with a gusto that amazed even Mickey. He didn’t realize he was that hungry. Water was boiled on the small fire and the cold chill was tempered in their bodies with hot Russian tea.

  Late that night, the groaning vehicle with Mickey and Feodor riding on the tail board now, reached a cave in the hills near the village of Kislovodsk, to the West of Pyatigorsk where the Kuban Cossacks held the Nazi lines whose eyes were turned toward the golden flow of the Grozny oil fields.

  As the wagon approached it from a trackless field, it was stopped by a guerrilla guard of three men. When they saw who the woman was and whom she had with her, the men were elated. One of the men took the horses’ heads and led them to a narrow pass cut in two thousands of years before by descending glacial currents. In the dark, the narrow pass was completely obscured and would not possibly have been found even by the woman who had been there before. If the guard had not taken them in, Feodor would have led them. But the guard simplified the job. Feodor could remain with Mickey to identify him.

  A few more winding turns in the dark and the wagon was halted. Mickey and Feodor dropped off the tail and Feodor preceded the American into the great, natural cavern that was recessed almost a hundred yards into the base of the hill. It was large and high-vaulted; wide and rambling.

  The place was fitted out like a dormitory, but not with modern fixtures. Not even the farms themselves could boast much of modern improvements; but there were beds of straw on both sides of the forward part of the cave; two or three roughhewn tables, and a dozen or more chairs brought up from the abandoned farms.

  As Mickey entered with Feodor, a loud shout of welcome greeted them. Several wounded men lay in the beds on the floor of the cave; others were seated on them or on chairs cleaning their “little rifles”—as they called them, by flickering candlelight. Although the cave was well set back in the hill, Koslovitch did not permit much light to be used in the hideout.

  The woman and the small boy hurried to the side of one of the wounded men. She dropped down beside him and threw her arms about his neck. So did the youngste
r. The man was glad to see them.

  “We have a doctor now,” the woman said. “You’ll be made well again, my husband.”

  “That is good,” replied the man. “Then I can take up the work of killing more Nazis.”

  Mickey came over to the man and brought his kitbag with him. Feodor joined him.

  “So this is the place?” said Mickey.

  “This is the place,” replied Feodor, “and these are the men.” He made a sweep with his hand that took in all the wounded men on the floor.

  * * * *

  Feodor introduced Mickey to the men. There were about twenty-five of them. The others were out on a mission. “I suppose Koslovitch, your leader, is with the others,” Mickey said turning to one of the men.

  “Koslovitch?” said the man puzzled.

  “Yes,” replied Mickey. “I understand he is quite a great guerrilla. One of the men at the prisoner’s camp mentioned the fact that he had killed no less than two hundred and fifty Nazis alone by his magnificent sniping.” Then he added quickly, “Of course, that doesn’t include a few hundred others who died in train wrecks or explosions.”

  “You do not know Koslovitch?” asked the still puzzled Russian.

  Mickey shook his head.

  The man on the straw bed laid down the rifle he was cleaning, put his head back and laughed uproariously. The other men, hearing the conversation, also joined in the fun much to the chagrin which showed plainly on the American’s face.

  “Well,” asked Mickey, “what’s so funny about that?”

  “He doesn’t know Koslovitch,” shouted the man in a deep basso profundo that echoed to the ceiling above. A roar of laughter rose again.